DIP

This is a true account of my experience with Driver Improvement Program with my mom at Greg's Driving School.

The teacher, for starters, was a real character. I can tell she's got a good heart and she's an amiable person. But my, what a gossipy lady she was. The class was not so much a lesson/touch up on how to improve your driving skills but it was a share and tell session of everyone trying to best everyone else on how bad of a driver they were, how many run ins they had with cops and how many tickets/points/fines they managed to rack up over the course of X weeks.

It's pretty entertaining stuff. Yeah, and by the way, my mom and I, we stuck out like eggplants among bananas. Two quiet, goody goody looking Asian females amidst a "class" of really interesting/wacked out people. I'd say 1/3 were females, 1/3 was black, 1/3 hispanic. There was one Indian guy. No East Asian guys. Lots and lots of too cool for school teenagers or young adults.

One guy, he came in and sat in a far dark corner, sporting his nifty shades in the DARK. The teacher made a crack, "It's not that sunny in here." I couldn't help smirking in agreement.

There was this other female. When asked why she was at the class, she very enthusiastically and in my opinion, egregiously TMI-ing, started telling her life story of traffic woes. She owes the MVA some $1000+ dollars in fines alone. She seemed rather proud of it. At one point, she was trying to helpfully kill a large wasp that found its way to the Driver Improvement Program. For its troubles, it was nearly assassinated were it not for the girl's extreme clumsiness. She managed to whack down the projector screen instead. It was a hoot.

And so I was there, feeling rather superior because I wasn't there because of a particular fine or traffic violation. I know this sounds horrible, but the feeling is most like an average, normal intelligence kid sitting in a class for "special education" and feeling somewhat relieved that one doesn't really belong there. I know I know, what a terribly small person I am.

I was there to help Mom with translating the test. She initially told me to just tell her the answers and I just told her, I'm going to translate and she has to answer for herself. Ha. Didn't happen. As it turns out, no one cares either. I just started telling Mom the answers to each question. It was much easier than translating the questions into Chinese and then have her figure out the answer. Good thing too, she passed with flying colors, due to my astute tutelage. then again, no one failed per se. the teacher would have just supplied the correct answers if you didn't get it right. The whole DIP was an absolute joke. But at least entertaining and got my mind off some personal issues for the moment.